


La Petit Princesse

by prosodiical



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Anastasia Fusion, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's a spy on the run. Tony and Pepper, space pirates, have business on Earth to contend with - and doesn't Natasha look an awful lot like the missing princess would?</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Petit Princesse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperclipbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/gifts).



Natasha's been lingering here too long.

The street gangs have begun to recognise her face, her hair, the way she walks, and it doesn't help that she's a human on an alien world. She can change all of that, of course, but it's far too much left to chance when instead the next freight out is only a flirtatious smile and a toss of her hair away, a rich man's wallet barely a challenge for her quick, nimble fingers. She walks out of the bar and slouches a little, messes her hair and widens her eyes as she heads to the port, where all the ships are lined up, some closer to leaving than not. She picks at the cash she acquired, bills ruffling through her fingers as she looks between them, all affect, when a man approaches her from the side.

He's short, hardly a physical threat, scruffy with grease and a goatee grown out; human, she realises, with slight surprise. "Hey," he says, "what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" and he chuckles at his own joke like he's funny. Natasha smiles at him, demure and shy under her cover, and awkwardly clears her throat and looks away.

"Sorry," she starts, voice hesitant, but the man takes a step closer, suddenly-sharp eyes studying her face, her clothes, dirty and worn.

"No," he says, more sober. His eyes scan her features, over and over, his mouth twisting thoughtfully. "You're looking for passage off this rock, right? We're leaving today - we might be able to help each other out."

Natasha lets herself be lead along to an old ship near the end of the line, looking worn but well-maintained, struts gleaming, bay clean. "It's not much," says the man, "but it's ours. About this thing," he starts, and glances around the port, eyes lingering on the guards at their stations, "might be better inside. Want to check out the quarters?"

The ship is even better on the inside, if it were possible. It's clearly not designed for aesthetic but for use, the corridors winding and narrow, panels pulled from the walls exposing wires and tape. Natasha automatically looks for the vulnerabilities of the system, but it's difficult to tell; this is an engineer's playground. "What's your name?" she ventures, and the man looks back over his shoulder as they walk into a large, open space.

"Tony Stark," he says.

It's not a familiar name, but the woman who walks in the room then is; Natasha recognises her from lists, from holovids, from gossip on-planet and off. She's the head of a smuggling ring, small but surprisingly lacking in corruption considering their trade. "Tony," she says, with a roll of her eyes, easy and familiar, "did you even get her name? I'm Pepper Potts," she introduces, and holds out her hand. Natasha takes it, keeps her grip steady but weak, and Pepper smiles. "I hope he hasn't scared you away already," she says.

"Oh, no," Natasha says. "Natalie Rushman." She doesn't miss the look shared between them, Tony and Pepper, though she's looking around, wide-eyed and awed. "It's a wonderful ship you have here. I - I've never seen anything quite like it."

"Thank you," Pepper says, with an incline of her head, and gestures to the table. "Please, take a seat."

Natasha does, and that's when Tony says abruptly, "So, who're you running from?"

"W-what?" she says, surprise only half-feigned, and he circles the table to stand at Pepper's side. "I'm not - "

"I'm not an idiot, you know," he says. "That hunted look in your eyes, the way you jumped at the first ship on offer - no, keep your money, what the hell, Pep - "

"We're headed to Earth," Pepper says, and pushes Natasha's hands clasping bills politely away. "It's the safest planet in the galaxy - whoever is chasing you won't find you there."

"But the lockdown," Natasha starts, intrigued despite herself, and Tony grins.

"Come on," he says, "you never thought of it before? You - young, pretty, red-haired - I'd say you could pass as the missing princess."

Everyone knows the tale of the Earth royals' missing daughter, Natalia Romanova - stolen from the palace as a child, still unfound. The restrictions on entering their system is lifted only for those who bring applicants, women who might be the princess lost and grown, and even then there are a series of selection tests before anyone is allowed to disembark. No one will find Natasha there, where she's the dominant species, where she can blend in and lose anyone who might come; she looks up and meets Tony's gaze. "Why do you want to go to Earth?"

His expression turns brittle, his smile tight and sharp. "Just know that we do, yeah? The whole sob story - maybe another time."

 

Natasha gets quarters, stark but well-sized, a large bed and a dresser and table. Pepper introduces her to Jarvis - "He runs the ship," she says, fondly, and Natasha asks, "A voice-controlled system?"

"Something like that," Pepper says, and Natasha wonders what it is she's missing.

The ship's on an Earth-length cycle, but Natasha soon discovers Tony isn't when he stumbles into the small, functional kitchen when the lights are still dark. Natasha's in the corner nursing a mug of tea and Tony starts when he sees her there, nearly jumping out of his skin. "You were," he starts, and squints back at the doorway, shaking his head. "Sorry?" His hair is a mess and he's covered in grease and oil and Natasha takes pity on him, pours another cup.

When he takes a sip his eyebrows creep up his forehead and he studies her appraisingly. "Not bad," he says. "This swill's usually not even drinkable."

"I pick things up, here and there," Natasha demurs, but the smile that touches the edge of her mouth could be real.

Tony hands her a slim tablet full of documents that evening, "all we've picked up on the missing princess. I'm sure you won't have any trouble." He meets her eyes, an obvious challenge, and she smiles.

"No," Natasha says, "I'll be fine."

 

(When Natasha sidles in to the kitchen the first morning, Pepper's there, boiling water on the stove. She makes a movement to leave but Pepper fixes her with her gaze, says: "Stay for just a moment, Natalie."

Pepper says, "I know there's more to you than what you're showing," and, "whoever you're running from - are they chasing you?"

Natasha is running from everyone. "They could be," she says, "but I doubt they'll catch up to me here."

"The organisation you used to work for," Pepper says. "Did they call it Hydra? Or was it SHIELD?"

It was both. Natasha mixes reality and cover with careful, practised words and when Pepper rests her fingers on the back of Natasha's hand, a light, reassuring touch, Natasha abruptly realises she's beautiful.)

 

Natasha learns the story of a little lost girl as she learns the beats of Pepper and Tony's lives. They dance around each other with the ease of habit, Pepper saving a plate of food for Tony every night he's not there, Tony stumbling around in the hours of the night until he finds his way to Pepper's bed. They share quarters and lives like they've been doing it for years, but Pepper won't say how long it's been when Natasha asks. "It's not important," she says, and her eyes are soft and quietly fond. "But with what happened - well, I'm all Tony has. And he's the same for me."

Natasha reads of a girl raised to royalty, spoiled and beloved, a girl with bright red hair with a penchance for mischief and lies. She learns of the girl's parents, the girl's staff; her preferred sweets and foods and games. "Will this even help?" she asks Pepper, one day, as they're both sitting around what must have been intended as a conference table, Pepper working on accounting, numbers. "Natalia - whoever she is now, if she's even alive - will certainly be a different person now."

Pepper's mouth twists in a frown. "You're right," she says, "but - once we get past the initial questions, our cargo will carry us through. And," she adds, with an amused slant to her smile, "do you remember your childhood? Perhaps you are her, Natalie."

Natasha thinks her expression does all the talking for her, a dubious tilt to her eyebrows. "I doubt it," she says, and leaves it at that.

So Pepper is easy to read, once Natasha gets a sense of her: beautiful, ambitious, accomplished, but a softness to her that speaks of no lasting hardships despite her loss. Tony is harder, always a burst of energy when she's least expecting it, dead on his feet when she wonders for answers. He treats her easily, friendly but not overly so, a strained distance between them that never quite fades.

At least, until the proximity alerts start blaring. "You have five incoming, sir," says Jarvis, the voice in the ceiling, and Tony swears and flicks up holographic screens, controls, data. Natasha lingers curiously by the door, and Tony sends her a brief, confused glance.

"Your friends?" he asks, and Natasha shrugs, loosely.

"None I care about."

"Oh? Great," he says, "because I'm going to blow them up. J, take the wheel, will you? Might want to brace yourself, sweetheart."

Their ship pulls out of hyperspace with a steady drag of force and Natasha grips the doorframe, watches a feed of the viewscreen as they spin around; their pursuers drop out barely a league away and have already started firing. When she zooms in, she can see the stylised skull on the helm - Hydra's found her again.

Their ship dodges the blasts with an eerie precognition, even while Tony's checking weapons, raising shields. "You're not," Natasha says, and then realises: "Your AI."

"Great, isn't he?" Tony says. "J, how's it looking?"

"If you would authorise the bombs, sir," Jarvis says, as calm and quietly amused as ever, "or must I?"

"Nah," says Tony, and presses the switch. Natasha watches the single torpedo leave, split, seek - and all the ships are gone.

"Well," says Natasha, reluctantly impressed, "thanks."

"Hm," Tony says, "I guess you're not so bad." Natasha raises her eyebrows at him and he punches her shoulder, in an attempt at a friendly gesture; she catches his fist in her hand.

"Sorry," she says, "habit," and whatever it is, in her tone or her expression, it makes him smile.

 

But it makes her remember something from long ago: a boy, maybe a year or two older than her, clever and sneaky and always fiddling, always working; he'd steal her away sometimes and they'd go exploring the sewers. "If we ever need to get away," he'd say, and Natasha would laugh like it was a joke. Other times he would take her exploring the basements, wide and expansive, and the room where he kept his projects, wires and half-built robots all in a state of deliberate disarray.

The memory feels distant, unreal. Natasha knows enough to know she might just have invented it, that it might just have been suggested to her, but the uncertainty still lingers in her mind. Does she remember her childhood? She remembers the Red Room, the classes, the halls, the dormitories like she'll never fully escape, but before that -

"Natalie?"

"Pepper," Natasha says. She's sitting on the flight deck, unmanned as usual, staring out as the stars whiz by; Pepper's dressed in sleepwear, light and silk, rubbing her eyes. Pepper looks rumpled for once, and it makes Natasha want to rumple her even more. "Were you looking for Tony?"

"Mm," Pepper says around a yawn, and sits beside Natasha companionably, her thigh warm and solid against Natasha's own. "He's too stressed right now, though - he works to keep it off his mind."

"Do you remember it?" Natasha asks. "Earth?"

"Bits," Pepper says, eyelids drooping. She leans her head on Natasha's shoulder; Natasha stills. "We were barely teenagers when we left, you know - I remember my family, Tony's family. I remember the princess," she says, "the color of her hair. My parents told me we met, once or twice, but I don't know - it was so long ago."

"I," Natasha says, and Pepper shifts her head and they're nearly nose to nose, mouth to mouth; Pepper's mouth curves in a smile and Natasha leans the bare inch forward and kisses her.

 

Pepper luxuriates in bed, in sleep; she mewls like a cat when Natasha finally drags herself away, fingers lacing gently around Natasha's arm. "You can stay," she says, and Natasha shakes her head.

"Sleep," she says, and presses her lips to Pepper's forhead, smooths away the tangles in her hair. "I'll be fine."

Natasha seeks out Tony, then. He's working on something Natasha knows now to be a weapon, and when he pulls away, safety goggles in his hair, he gives her a once-over and grins. "Took her up on it, huh?" he says, and Natasha pauses.

"Are you," she starts, trying to clear her thoughts. "Was this supposed to be..." She gestures between them.

"Me?" he says. "Uh," and his expression turns bemused. "I wouldn't say no, but..."

"You love her, don't you?" Natasha says, and he looks briefly hunted before he nods, awkwardly, looking away. "Hey," she says, and tries to soften her tone. "I don't see why not."

He laughs, short and sharp, says, "Sweetheart, I'm a mess."

"Then," says Natasha, and starts walking toward him, slow and steady, "we'll work it out. One step at a time." She corners him at a workbench, his back pressed against the metal as she rests her hands on the edge, and stares him direct in the face.

Tony blinks, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. Natasha can nearly hear the race of his pulse but his voice is steady when he says, "Well, you've convinced me."

Natasha's mouth quirks and she steps deliberately away, but when she leaves the room she lingers enough to hear Tony's shaky exhale and sigh.

 

So they work it out. Tony's out of bed more often than not but when he joins them he sleeps like the dead, sprawls out across all corners like he owns it; Natasha gets used to the weight of Tony's arm across her shoulders, the press of Pepper's legs against hers. But every day their ship tracks across the universe, through to the Milky Way, closing in on Earth.

The initial questions are simple, and Natasha is no amateur spy. She bluffs through them with the ease of someone who plays pretend by heart but inside she's uncertain; Pepper presses a gentle hand against her arm, Tony tries a punch to her shoulder, and it's better but she's still - there's still - something. "What was it," she says, once they're cleared to land, "that you had to do?"

"My dad had a company here," Tony says. "Weapons manufacturing, but he got in deep with some intergalactic agencies. He got bumped off when I was a kid, and the person who replaced him stole the whole thing out from under me."

"Stark," Natasha realises, "as in, Stark Industries."

"It was a lost cause from the start," Pepper says, "and when Stane tried to kill Tony..."

Tony sighs. "There was this path, down in the sewers - it lead out, toward the space ports, where you could catch a ride out if you had the patience or the cash."

Natasha stares at him; her breath feels short in her chest and she has to consciously monitor it, in and out. "Did anyone else know of it?"

"I used to go down there with the princess," Tony says, "Natalia. Cute kid. I always told her, she should..." He sighs, shakes his head. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore."

Natasha doesn't know how to say it, so she doesn't. But she passes the next tests, and the next; Tony and Pepper are gone somewhere on the surface, probably chasing down their retribution but that means it's Natasha alone who stumbles on answers when her instincts clash with learned information, Natasha alone who's invited to the palace itself, grand and terribly, strangely familiar.

But she doesn't make it to the king and queen. There's a manservant dressed in livery, standing military-straight but unaccountably someone she knows. "Yasha?" Natasha blurts, and then wants to kick herself, because why would her teacher -

"Natalia," he breathes, and his face is the same, his Russian accent sounding like home. He had always called her that, Natasha realises, as he sweeps her up in a hug like she's still the little girl she was when they saw each other last, and she ducks her head and tries to hide the smile that wants to erupt. "Natalia. Welcome home."

"Is it?" Natasha says, because home for her now isn't a place but the comfort of people she knows, and her mind drifts to soft strawberry-blonde hair, surprisingly gentle calloused fingers and a scratchy half-beard. "Is this my home?"

"It was," Yasha says.

 

The pomp and ceremony of the reconciliation Natasha feels entirely unsuited for is interrupted by the least graceful entrance she's ever seen, a metal suit that looks distinctly like the parts she's seen lying around Tony's workshop blasting old rock music, flailing in the air and landing with a thud. "Hey," says Tony, "want to blow this joint?"

Natasha looks at the crowds of humans she doesn't know, the worn, anxious parents who hired her old teacher but still hadn't managed to find her themselves, now people she doesn't even know. "I'll call you," she says, over the amplified air, and Tony lifts the faceplate and winks at the crowd.

"Hey, hey," he calls out, "enough of that - I'm just here to borrow your princess for a bit - a moment - just a tiny amount of time, really. Natalia?" he says, and Natasha can feel the laugh burbling up in her chest as s takes Tony's hand and he lifts off, wobbly at first and then a rush of wind and the hard, sure grip of metal.

They're flying. Natasha looks at the ground, rushing past dizzingly far away, and feels complete delight.

But she doesn't let it loose until they land, right by the dock of their old ship, and Pepper walks out, smiling. Natasha puts a hand over her mouth as Tony says, "You didn't think we'd stay here, did you? Guess who just shut down Stark Industries."

"With a billion dollars worth of assets for me to manage still," Pepper says, with a roll of her eyes. "Come on, stop grandstanding."

"Right, the great escape," Tony says. "Can I say I had a feeling?"

"I," Pepper emphasises, "had a feeling. Natalie? Or is it Natalia now?"

"I prefer Natasha," Natasha says, smiling, and follows them home.


End file.
